Cecilia Fajardo-Hill’s article, “Patssi Valdez: ‘I dare you question me,’ A Radical Photographic Portraiture,” will demonstrate Patssi Valdez’s contribution to photography, performance, and conceptual art before, during, and after her work with the Asco Group (1972-87). Fajardo-Hill’s article will present an in-depth analysis of Valdez’s pioneering performative photographic work to highlight Valdez’s notions of theatricality, punk, and glamour, and how they challenge stereotypes based on race, gender, and class.
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is an independent British-Venezuelan art historian and curator in modern and contemporary art, specializing in Latin American art. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Essex. She has held curatorial positions at the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Latin American Art, the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation, and Sala Mendoza, an alternative space for contemporary art in Caracas, Venezuela. She is co-curator of Xican-a.o.x.Body, an exhibition organized by the American Federation of the Arts, set to open 2022. She has held teaching positions at the USC Roski School of Art and Design and Princeton University, and is presently Research Scholar at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center.